SOURCE: "Hard Guys and Heroes," in Commentary, Vol. 79, No. 5, May, 1985, pp. 64, 66-7.

In the following excerpt, Kaplan provides a mixed review of Glitz, and compares and contrasts Leonard's novels with works by author Ross Thomas, whose novel is also reviewed.

After eighteen novels written over the course of three decades, Elmore Leonard, who lives and writes in a suburb north of Detroit, has made it big with Glitz, a novel about a policeman, a psychopathic criminal, two beautiful women, and Atlantic City gangsters. His previous books were paperback originals, but this one is near the top of the hard-cover best-seller list, it is a book-club selection, and it is receiving favorable reviews just about everywhere, except where it is getting raves.

Less spectacular is the success of Ross Thomas, a resident of Malibu, California, whose twentieth novel (including five written under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck), Briarpatch, also is...